Supreme Court declines to hear Texas same-sex marriage benefits case

A Colorado cake baker and the same-sex couple for whom he declined to make a wedding cake were all at the Supreme Court to witness arguments in the case.

Phillips said he couldn't design a custom wedding cake for two men who requested it.

In any case, the administration legal counselors drew a line with regards to race, contending that laws focusing on race-based segregation may survive uplifted First Amendment investigation to some degree in light of the fact that racial predisposition "is a well-known and repeating malicious that stances one of a kind verifiable, sacred and institutional concerns".

Craig Konnoth, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Law School, says the court's decision could have broad implications for anti-discrimination laws in Colorado and across the nation. The two men planned to throw a party locally in celebration of having been legally married in MA.

Kennedy, the author of all the court's major gay-rights cases, anxious early in a riveting argument at the high court that a ruling in favor of baker Jack Phillips might allow shop owners to put up signs saying "We do not bake cakes for gay weddings".

LGBT rights advocates expect that if the Supreme Court at last favors Phillips, it will lessen its point of interest assessment from two years prior that made room for same-sex marriage across the country.

In the meeting, Phillips stated, "I feel I'm being constrained to make fine art for an occasion - an inalienably religious occasion - that conflicts with my confidence, and I'm being constrained to do as such under punishment of prison time and fines".

"When we have someone that is sketching and sculpting and hand-designing something, that is creating a temporary sculpture that serves as the centerpiece of what they believe to be a religious wedding celebration", Waggoner said.

David Cole, an attorney for Mullins, a 33-year-old poet and musician, and Craig, a 37-year-old interior designer, said he respected the sincerity of Phillips' convictions.

All eyes were on Justice Anthony M. Kennedy in today's U.S. Supreme Court clash between Colorado's anti-discrimination laws and free speech.

The city and current Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, also a Democrat, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the dispute had already been settled because the Obergefell ruling extended to married same-sex couples the "constellation of benefits that the states have linked to marriage". The following year, the Colorado Supreme Court declined to hear the case, and the conservative group Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing Phillips, appealed to the Supreme Court.

They fear that if the Supreme Court ultimately sides with Phillips, it will diminish its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. An amicus brief filed on behalf of 20 states, and a brief from the U.S. Justice Department, make similar arguments.

But Kennedy was also concerned with the idea of forcing religious business owners to act in ways that violate their sincerely held beliefs. Although the customer claimed that the refusal to provide a cake with this message was "demeaning to his beliefs", the agency said the owner could refuse to put a message on cakes which included "derogatory language and imagery", provided it would do so for all customers.

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